Award Winner – Page 29 – Discover great gay stories.

Revisit the controversial 1994 drama ‘Priest’

Not quite as incendiary as it was when it was first released in 1994, or as the theme might suggest, Priest tells the moving, truly provocative story of one clergyman’s struggle for sexual identity and religious idealism.

Linus Roache gives a stirring performance as Father Greg, a newly transferred priest assigned to a parish in a working-class neighborhood of Liverpool. As he comes into conflict with the liberal Father Matthew (Tom Wilkinson, terrific as always), whi is having a scandalous affair with the housekeeper (Cathy Tyson), Father Greg tries to come to terms with his emerging sexuality.

As the heart of this classic film is also the touching story of a sexually abused teen (Christine Tremarco) who confides in Father Greg, thus engaging him in a crisis on conscience.

A remarkably compelling debate on religious dogma, one intended to provoke thought and stir your emotions, Priest made a whole lot of waves when its premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (where it won the People’s Choice Award) back in 1994 – and went onto a wide release in early 1995. The film was loudly condemned by the Catholic Church in Ireland, who called for a ban. Using sound judgement, the Irish Film Censor Board decided to go ahead and allow it to be released… on Easter weekend, no less. This marked one of the first major disagreements between the Church and the Board.

Priest is streaming now on Dekkoo.

Get ‘Woke’ on Dekkoo!

Winner of the “Best Web Series” award at the La Rochelle Fiction Festival in 2017 and the “Best LGBT Series” award at the UK Web Fest that same year, the gay drama series Woke (originally titled Les Engages) is now available to watch on Dekkoo!

The show follows Hicham (Mehdi Meskar), who runs away from his home and comes to Lyon looking for Thibaut (Eric Pucheu), an attractive young man who had tried to kiss him just a few years before… and left a lasting impression.

Thibaut is an activist at the local LGBT Community Center. Hicham soon discovers his world. As his process of self-discovery unfolds, Hicham’s initial apprehension soon turns to enthusiasm. However, he soon comes to find that Thibaut isn’t exactly the person he appears to be.

Check out the trailer below and catch up on all the action on Dekkoo – where all ten episodes of the first season are now streaming.

Get lost in the beauty of ‘Malila: The Farewell Flower’

Former gay lovers Shane and Pitch reunite after years apart and try to heal the wounds of their past. Shane is haunted by the tragic death of his daughter, while Pitch suffers a grave illness, rejecting medical treatment as painful and ineffective. Pitch creates beautiful structures of flowers and banana leaves as a way to cope. Meanwhile, Shane trains to become a Buddhist monk, to build karma for Pitch to either keep him alive or to help in his afterlife. A remarkably beautiful, spiritual film, Malila: The Farewell Flower is as close to transcendent as cinema gets.

Born in Nakhon Phanom, north-eastern Province of Thailand, in 1981, writer-director Anucha Boonyawatana heads up one of the largest video production companies in Thailand. Her student film, Down the River, which, like much of her work, combines Buddhist philosophy, Thai art and a gay love story, won numerous awards and was even given a release in the United States. She followed that up with her debut feature The Blue Hour, which screened in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival in 2015.

Malila: The Farewell Flower, Boonyawatana’s second full-length feature, might also be her most gorgeous, haunting and heady. It’s streaming right now on Dekkoo. Check out the trailer below.

Watch the short (soon to be feature) film Breaking Fast

Well-received by critics, audiences and juries at film festivals all around the globe, writer-director Mike Mosallam‘s short film Breaking Fast is currently on the path to becoming a feature film. The original short is now available on Dekkoo!

The 17-minute short follows Mo (Ryan P. Shrime), an Arab-American Muslim man dealing with heartbreak. Soon into the film, Mo meets Kal (Tom Berklund), a very sweet and attractive All-American dude. At first, Mo assumes that the two of them will have little to nothing in common. To his great surprise, however, Kal offers to break fast with him during the month of Ramadan. As the two men learn more and more about each other, they begin to fall in love.

“My intention was to tell a story that my friends and I could see ourselves in – one that spoke to the nuances of daily life and treated identity: religious, sexual, gender and otherwise, as harmonious lenses by which individuals interact with the world around them,” said Mosallam during an interview with the Arab Film Festival, where he was selected as a juror. “When a friend asked what characters in modern cinema I felt best represented my journey, as a Muslim, I was at a complete loss to name one.”

Mosallam is working to change that in ways both big and small – and Breaking Fast is certainly a step in the right direction. Check out the trailer below and make sure to watch the film on Dekkoo.

Pride Month Spotlight: The Apple Tree

When Gabe and Jonathan (played as young men by Jay Renshaw and Ryland Shelton) fall in love in the 1940s, they decide to spend their life together in secret. But as the times changed, so died the couple – who were eventually able to express their love openly.

When Jonathan unexpectedly passes away years later, Gabe (played as an older man Jerry Bornstein) is faced with a dilemma that many LGBT elders encounter when they move into retirement homes… going back into the closet.

A 30-minute short film, writer-director Matthew Ladensack’s The Apple Tree screened world-wide at LGBT film festivals, and ended up winning the Best Picture prize at Out in the Desert. The short was very powerful at the time it was released and over the intervening years, with many baby boomers entering assisted living homes, the story the film tells has become much louder and stronger – so much so that Ladensack is in the process of adapting it into a feature film.

The writer/director’s newest draft earned a spot in the Top 50 of the world famous Tracking Board Launch Pad feature screenplay contest and was a semi-finalist at the Nashville Film Festival Feature Screenplay Contest. The feature will focus not only on aging in the gay community, but on two generations of gay men coming together – a new primary character, Colton, is a closeted high school football player who ends up forming a close bond with Gabe and seeing, first hand, the experiences of his LGBTQ fore-bearers.

Make sure you check out the original short film before the full-length feature arrives. The Apple Tree is currently streaming on Dekkoo. It’s one of our Pride Month picks.

Pride Month Spotlight: Were the World Mine

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

It doesn’t get better than this swoon-worthy, candy-colored musical about a high school boy who uses magic to turn many of the boys at school gay – just in time for a show-stopping production of a Shakespearean classic. Since its release, Were the World Mine has become a gay musical classic that we will return to again and again.

Timothy (Tanner Cohen) is a gay boy stranded in a private all-boys school, which is largely obsessed with rugby. Unfortunately, there’s only one thing about rugby that catches Timothy’s interest: he’s obsessed with the super-adorable star player Jonathan (Nathaniel David Becker).

Both boys are students in Ms. Tebbit’s English class (she’s played by the delightful Wendy Robie of “Twin Peaks” and The People Under the Stairs). She’s a teacher with a mission: to excite her students with the literature of the ages. When she decides to cast these two boys as the romantic leads in her production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (and to cast boys in all of the female roles), she proves herself just as mischievous as Puck.

The rugby Coach and townspeople are up in arms, but for Timothy, it seems like his wildest romantic fantasies may be coming true. He finds, in the script, the recipe for a potion to make people gay. With just a few spritzes from his magic pansy, the entire town (filled with Christian fundamentalists) is soon whipped into frenzy as the glorious production night approaches.

This deliciously surreal confection from co-writer/director Thomas Gustafson, based on his own 2003 short film Fairies, is a true gem. The musical numbers are over-the-top, production values first-rate and the acting is as flawless as the adorable boys on display. Even the top critics agreed back in 2008 when the film first screened. After Elton called it “absolutely breathtaking” and The New York Times said it was “movie musical magic.” It also managed to snag over twenty audience and jury awards during its initial film festival run.

Swoon all over Were the World Mine RIGHT NOW on Dekkoo! It’s one of our treasured Pride Picks.

‘The Apple Tree’ to become a feature film. You can help!

Every day hundreds of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered elders are faced with the despairing truth of being isolated and discriminated against as they enter their twilight years. Some have completely denounced their sexuality in fear of being who they are, while others give up and sometimes even commit suicide after facing the fact that they must return into the closet.

Matthew Arnold-Ladensack’s award-winning short film, ‘The Apple Tree’ deals with this subject. The short centers around Gabe, an elderly wheelchair-bound veteran who is forced back into the closet after his life partner passes away and he moves into a homophobic assisted living home.

We were thrilled to learn that the filmmakers have decided to turn the ‘The Apple Tree’ into a feature length film and they need our help!

Please donate to, share or follow this wonderful project!

New This Week – 4/27/18

Set against the background of a broken U.S. immigration system, ‘A Place to Be’ is a love story between two young men, Abel & Diego. When tragedy strikes and Diego’s immigration status is revealed, Abel and Diego discover the power of love during uncertain times. From the Award Winning filmmaker Tadeo Garcia comes a love story for our time. Watch ‘A Place to Be’ now on Dekkoo one month before DVD!

The story of the only heterosexual flamingo and his desperate attempt to find love. Watch the wonderful animated short, ‘Flamingo Pride’ on Dekkoo!

David, the host of a local gay radio show in Buffalo, New York, struggles with self-doubt when his single sister asks him to be the father figure for her soon to be adopted Brazilian child. Stream ‘The David Dance’ now on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: A brand new chilling homoerotic thriller.

DEKKOO DISPATCH 067 – ‘BUGCRUSH’

Title – ‘Bugcrush‘

Director – Carter Smith

Starring – Josh Caras, Donald Cumming, Eleonore Hendricks, David Tennent

Release Date – 2006

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Well it’s a very dark and yet exciting day here in Dekkoo-world with the launch of Carter Smith’s award-winning short-ish film from 2006 ‘Bugcrush‘! This is absolutely, positively, my favorite short film ever – it’s disturbing, sexy, and gorgeously made. The photography, sound design, and choice of locations all come together to reach a level of perfection for my particular aesthetic interests. The short premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to win the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film! Based on his success at Sundance Carter Smith went on to direct the Summer blockbuster horror film ‘The Ruins’ and later in 2014 the intimate ghost love-triangle film ‘Jamie Marks is Dead’.

‘Bugcrush‘ is set in a small town in the forest-heavy state of Maine. We meet Ben – a mousey nerd-ish loner type who happens to be the first person to talk to the dark, mysterious, and sexy new kid in school, Grant who immediately upon arrival gets an immediate detention for smoking. What does Ben do then? He gets detention on purpose so he can stare at Grant for a couple of hours. Ben’s friends try to talk him down from his obsession with Grant. They warn him that he’s just a straight guy that’ll beat him up if he knew Ben was into him. But none of this deters Ben who proceeds to work up the courage one school day to propose a hangout with Grant that leads to a very bumpy night to say the least…

The film is an adaptation of a short story by Scott Treleaven, an artist who founded the queer pagan punk ‘zine ‘This is the Salivation Army’ back in the 90’s. It was collected in the queer horror anthology ‘Queer Fear 2’ which is where Carter Smith first read it. “The moment I read the short story the very first time, it was like being hit by a bus,” Carter Smith said, waiting in a Dallas airport for a changeover flight to Salt Lake City. “I was like, ‘This is the film that I can make better than anybody else. This is the film I have to make.’ It just sort of clobbered me over the head.” Before making ‘Bugcrush‘ Carter Smith was a professional fashion photographer and commercial director. He was certainly able to bring over his keen instinct for stylization and photography to create a dark and foreboding landscape of teenage angst and sexuality.

The film was shot on 35mm and the color timing is some of the best I’ve ever seen. Greens have a corpse-like quality to them (except when it comes to Ben’s eyes which seem to be leaping out of the screen at you) and the roads at night are a gorgeous yellow-grey color. Another part of the production that leaps out at you is the sound design. The entire film is filled with eerie moans and distorted childish voices that promote the escalating tension in everyday normal situations like school hallways. The idea to un-synchronize the sound during the driving scene at night is totally brilliant! And so was the idea to have lots of whispering voices giving you additional info about characters. Turn up your volume!!

This movie has everything! Pretty guys, teenage crushes, weird drugs, sexy smoking, metal music, awkward hidden sexuality, creepy straight guys, and cockroaches! Watch ‘Bugcrush‘ with your ‘crush’ tonight!

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Watch it with: Someone you have a dark crush on…

Mix it with: Vodka.

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New This Week – 4/6/18

Ian McKellen delivers an award-winning performance as Hollywood horror director James Whale. It’s 1957, and Whale’s heyday as the director of ‘Frankenstein’, ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ and ‘The Invisible Man’ is long behind him. Retired and a semi-recluse, he lives his days accompanied only by images from his past. When a handsome young gardener (played by the beautiful Brendan Fraser) enters the picture, the pair develop an unlikely friendship. Watch ‘Gods And Monster’ now on Dekkoo!

When the fifteen year old Bram meets Florian at a house party, he immediately falls for him. There’s only one problem: nobody knows Bram is gay. Watch ‘Turn It Around’ now on Dekkoo!

A successful stay-at-home graphic novelist, has hit a mid-life and creative crisis. When his wife begins to suspect an affair she is surprised to learn he’s spending all of his time with his gay neighbor. ‘Finding Neighbors’ is now available to stream on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: A gay story from Sri Lanka, where being gay is illegal.